The first item on my agenda for the day was to paddle past a nuclear power plant. I had done this once before at Diablo Canyon, which had a one nautical mile stay-away rule. I called San Onofre Nuclear Generating Plant the afternoon before, but they didn't answer my call in time. I tried calling them on my marine VHF radio as I approached, but unlike Diablo Canyon they didn't monitor or answer on channel 16. So I assumed they had a one nautical mile stay-away rule and turned out to sea to go around them. That evening I found an ambiguous message on my cell-phone saying that "Kayaking is OK". What does that mean? It would be OK to kayak one nautical mile away? Or it would be OK to kayak right past the plant? I would have liked to do that! I did notice that board surfers were much closer than one nautical mile as I made my pass.
After avoiding the nuclear power plant, I paddled close to shore again along San Onofre State Beach, just outside the impact zone. This beach had GREAT weaves that I would have LOVED to surf. Much better than the waves at famous Huntington Beach with thousands of board surfers hanging out. The larger sets would slip under me, almost steep enough to surf even 50 yards from shore. Towards shore they would start to spill but stop and start again. The last break before shore looked pretty gentile. A guy in a coaster could get long rides all day long around here! Why were there no board surfers here? I had a long day of paddling ahead of me and the wrong boat for surfing so I resisted the temptation. Perhaps on a weekend the board surfers came out here anyway but it was a weekday and they had to work?
Behind the State Beach the land was all part of Camp Pendelton Marine Corps Base. Helicopters were doing maneuvers all day long. Double bladed helicopters were landing behind the bluff, taking off, flying out to sea, circling back over land and starting over again. Single bladed helicopters went up and down the coast. I saw a strange asymmetrical boat at sea with spray coming out in all directions. Do the marines use hovercraft? I was fascinated by them when I was in high school, certainly I must be imagining them now. But then I heard a huge fan noise to my left. I looked towards shore and there I saw a … HOVERCRAFT! Slipping down a huge concrete ramp carved in the cliff down to the beach. The ramp was pointing directly at me! It occurred tome that I ought to do something predictable, like continuing to paddle in a straight line but perhaps a little faster! I started going about as fast as I could and hoping that I would be past this thing when it hit the water. The hovercraft was at least 20 feet tall and over 60 feet long. It slowly moved down the ramp onto the sand, then tooted a horn like a cartoon tugboat, turned off its fans and settled down onto its curtain on the beach. A truck drove down the ramp to join it. Did they see me in the water in front of them, or was I just lucky and they forgot something that the truck was delivering? I kept working hard to get out of the way.
After I felt safely out of the line of fire, the hovercraft tooted like a cartoon tugboat and turned on its fans again. It rose up on its curtains, kicked up a cloud of sand, then a cloud of spray and roared off to sea like waves were not there. The one that I had first seen out at sea had also shut off its fans and waited for a minute. Were they waiting for me to get out of the way? There was a tall tower next to the hovercraft ramp which I had assumed was an aircraft tower for the helicopters. Had they seen me from there? After the hovercraft on the ramp had made it out to sea the first one came in for a landing and went up the ramp. The rest of the day I saw more evidence of the marines on maneuvers. Even as I approached the harbor at Oceanside I saw a string of zodiacs full of soldiers zooming out to sea. Are they coming to chastise me for getting in the way? To take away my digital camera for taking pictures of their hovercraft? No, they ignored me this time.
My plan was to land at the first street in Oceanside that went up town to my motel, but the surf looked bad. I'm sure I could land there, but is there a better place in the harbor? I didn't want to take the time to explore the harbor after 28 miles of paddling already this day. Then I saw two kayakers over by the pier. I chased them down to ask locals for advice. They kept paddling away even after waving back at my shouted "helloes". When I caught up with them they turned out to be the singularly least helpful people I have ever talked to. They said they launched from the harbor, but they didn't seem to know it. Even showing them a map and asking specific questions like "What is on this side of the harbor" elicited answers like "Nothing". There has to be something: a sea wall? A dock? A boat ramp? A jetty? A beach? The answer was "No. You should go look for yourself". I thanked them and returned to my original plan: Land on the beach and check out the harbor later. I managed to make the worst landing of the week. I miss-calculated the topology and had a wave pearl my boat, pick up the tail and jam the nose of the kayak underwater until it hit bottom. I thought I might have to do a roll but the kayak wallowed back upright and took me to shore anyway. I don't remember going underwater or even getting my hair wet but I found a bunch of sand in it later.
When I found my hotel, the manager shook his head at me in disgust. He decided that I was stark raving mad, and rolling a kayak around in the middle of town was proof positive. I borrowed a hose from him anyway, rinsed the sand off me and my kayak, dried the boat in the sun and stored it in my room. Then I went exploring and found a shortcut to the harbor that was not on my map. A bike trail that went under the railroad track that ordinarily cut the town in half with few crossings. Down at the harbor I looked at the place where I was told there was "nothing". Here I found a public boat ramp among other things. Even though this was a little farther away than the beach, I decided to launch here in the morning to avoid unpacking and re-packing my kayak to cross the sand one more time. Of course knowing that I had an easy launch in a protected harbor helped me sleep better that night.